Acts of the General Assembly of the State of Louisiana: title varies, New Orleans/Baton Rouge, var. state printers, 1805– (French exploration of the lower Mississippi Valley began in the late 1600s, and a French fort was established at Biloxi in 1699. The territory was under military governance until 1712, when Louis XIV granted letters patent to Antoine Crozat for all of the Crown’s territory “between old and new Mexico and Carolina.” A superior council was established with jurisdiction in all matters civil and criminal. Light-handed French rule extended for the next fifty years, after which, in 1762, France ceded the ill-defined “Louisiana Territory” to Spain in compensation for the latter’s support during the Seven Years’ War. A much more hands-on Spanish governance extended for the next 41 years until 1800, when France, under Napoleon I, reclaimed sovereignty. But events in Europe soon overwhelmed Napoleon’s schemes for an “American Empire,” and on 30 April 1803, by the Treaty of Paris, sovereignty for the still ill-defined “Louisiana Territory” passed to the United States. By the Breckinridge Act of 26 March 1804 the new territorial acquisition was split into an “Orleans Territory” {comprising most of present-day Louisiana and holding most of the holdover French citizens} and a mostly empty “District of Louisiana” {later The Territory of Missouri}, which was placed under the jurisdiction of the U.S. governor for the Indiana Territory. In its first two years the Orleans Territory was administered by a U.S. governor assisted by a Legislative Council. But the governor/legislative-council structure dissatisfied the French citizens because it enabled Governor Clairborne to repeal or modify civil laws in force and to interfere with the continuance of slavery. In the event the governor/legislative-council system survived for only two sessions; respectively starting on Dec. 3, 1804, and June 20, 1805. In 1805, in response to petitions from the French and Creoles, the U.S. Congress granted to the citizens of the Orleans District a right to establish a new territorial government, modeled as in other U.S. territories under the terms of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. That new government had an elected twenty-five-man House of Representatives and a five-man Legislative Council appointed by the U.S. president. The Orleans Territorial Legislature met for three two-year terms; 1806/07, 1808/09, & 1810/11. The Orleans Territory became the State of Louisiana in 1812, with its first state legislative session being held in July of that year.)